Encouraging children to work together and to develop their metacognition

Chris Frith, Professor Emeritus at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London and Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, researches social cognition; the psychology and underlying physiology of how people interact with each other. His latest research on decision-making reveals that in the right circumstances, the decision made by a group can be better than any single individual’s decision.

This largely depends on metacognition, the insight into one’s own ability and the capacity to communicate that to other people. Frith calls for more emphasis on metacognition in education; children should work together more and learn not only how to do things, but also to recognize how good they are at doing things.